1. Tell as much as you're willing about your "real life" like name, age, gender, location, family, religion, profession, education, hobbies, etc.

My name is Jim and I'm located in Williams Lake, BC Canada. My parents who are in thier late 70's soon to be 80 live with me along with 1 ¬Ω year old Golden Retriever on 3.5 acres just out of town.

I am a certified heavy equipment mechanic and I have a computer repair certificate from Control Data Inc., that I earned in 1989.

I have held various jobs over the years, from an open pit mining equipment mechanic, to a home entertainment equipment repair technician, to being a field service engineer (their job classification) for Pitney Bowes and NCR. The last job I held working for someone else was as a tow truck driver.

2. When and how did you become interested in computers? in Linux? in Ubuntu?

My dad bought a used Commodore Pet back in the early 80's, we never could get it to work properly, so eventually it became part of a project for Pitney Bowes, creating plastic id cards for hospitals. The second computer my dad bought was an Apple II clone, that we spent hours typing in programs from magazines, and eventually started creating spread sheets with Visicalc. I went on to an Apple IIg clone and eventually IBM clones.

I first started using Linux in 1998, when I saw an advertisement for RedHat 5.2 in a local computer paper. Back then high speed access wasn't generally available, but one of the local Office Supply Stores stocked various boxed distributions, I went through 3 versions of Mandrake, plus a couple of others that I don't remember any more. In 2000 I was involved in the private beta test of Xandros. I still have the manuals and cd-roms for all the boxed versions I bought.

I started using Ubuntu, when I saw an ad on a web page saying that they would ship you free copies of their latest version, a few weeks later I received a package with 25 copies of Warty. I never could get it to work properly on any of my equipment, so I went on to PCLinuxOS.

When Dapper came out I decided to give it a try, and have been using Ubuntu as my main OS ever since.

As far as hobbies are concerned, computers seem to be my main obsession these days.

3. When did you become involved in the forums (or the Ubuntu community)? What's your role there?

I joined the forum in 2006, but really didn't become active until 2008, I had an enforced holiday, and had lots of time, so I started answering questions, and I must have done well enough as I was asked to become a moderator in the spring of 2009.

4. Are you an Ubuntu member? If so, how do you contribute? If not, do you plan on becoming one?

I am not an Ubuntu member yet, but I plan on becoming a member in the next 6 months.

5. What distros do you regularly use? What software? What's your favorite application? Your least favorite?

I am currently running several versions of Ubuntu on all but two of my computers. They run everything from Hardy server to Karmic to a custom version I created using the Jaunty mini.iso.

My favorite application is vlc and I really dislike Evolution.

6. What's your fondest memory from the forums, or from Ubuntu overall? What's your worst?

My fondest memory is the thank you's I've gotten from helping other members. The worst has to be some of the responses I get when giving a member an infraction.

7. What luck have you had introducing new computer users to Ubuntu?

I haven't had much luck converting others to Ubuntu, as I am of the opinion that you should use whatever works best for you.  That being said most of my friends are either non-computer users or they only use computers at work.

I am considering starting a LUG if there is enough interest locally.

8. What would you like to see happen with Linux in the future? with Ubuntu?

I would like to see more computers sold with Linux pre-installed, most specifically Ubuntu.

9. If there was one thing you could tell all new Ubuntu users, what would it be?

When things don't work as expected, relax, don't get in a panic. Take some time to check out the forums, as most problems have been solved several times over.

Regardless, I had a think about what I could do. Reinstalling XP was the first thing that came to mind, but then I'd have to spend another 5 hours doing updates to it and reinstalling everything, which I abhor doing, as I'm sure many people can relate to. I then stopped and had a think about what they all *actually* use the PC for.

They use Office 2007, Internet Explorer/Firefox (the use of each varies between people), BBC iPlayer, and iTunes. That's actually just about all they use. Now, Office can be replaced with OpenOffice.org, that isn't really a problem, except for the huge UI change from the ribbon interface back to the menu's etc. Firefox is natively installed, and they're starting to use it more anyway. BBC iPlayer is web based, but the desktop client for Linux can be installed with Adobe Air...

This just leaves iTunes, and while I'm aware there are plenty of alternatives that can be used, they all lack the one massively important feature for the rest of my family. The iTunes Store.

They use it quite regularly, which presents a great problem. How can I switch them to Ubuntu but keep the iTunes store? A VM? A dual boot? Both would work, but a VM on a P4 isn't the most practical solution, even with 2GB RAM. A dual boot would essentially take me back to step 1, and Ubuntu would never get used.

So I'm in a bit of a pickle really...I've said I'll sort the computer out for them, but it's just a case of how it gets "sorted".

I was asked if I'd be interested in proof reading/reviewing (I don't really know what else to call it) this book back in the middle of September. After a few confused questions on my part, I agreed. So a few weeks after I received the first of several chapters to proof read and comment on, which I enjoyed doing, partly as it gave me something to do, and partly because I'd never done anything like it before, so it was a new experience.

I actually learnt quite a bit in the process as well, for example the first chapter I received was on LDAP, which...I'd never used or looked into before. So I did a little research into basically what it was, and what it's purpose was, and then read the chapter on setting it up. Luckily we touched on the topic on my University course too, so I had a heads up on that one!

I really enjoyed reviewing this book, and I'll definitely be using it as a reference (I got my copy the other day!), and possibly reading the apache/ssh server sections to see if there's any tips on securing them, or any simple tweaks to improve them. I know a couple of other Ubuntu Forum Staff got asked to review it as well, as their names appear just in front of mine in the "Thanks" section at the front of the book.

So once again, I'd like to thank everybody I had contact with at Pearson publishing, both for giving me the opportunity to do this, and for putting up with me in the process (I'm sure I asked some stupid questions at some point, so it's best to apologize just in case ). Hopefully I'll get asked next time too!

As Requested by Jacob

So I was talking to my lecturer about Ubuntu in general (he's a fellow user) and I found out that hopefully, by the start of the next academic year at the University (Sept/Oct 09) the entire University should be in a dual boot situation with Windows, and all linked up to the network. However I'm expecting this to apply to only the Windows labs, and not the Mac labs

Either way I thought it was great that they'll be putting Linux on the desktops. I know that they run Linux servers, as I'm often connected to it via screen & ssh (coincidentally a fantastic combination), however to run it on the desktop is a big push forward. I have seen quite a few students running Linux this year though. For example the other day I saw somebody running Ubuntu on his eee, but I didn't stop to ask more

I'll post back when if I find out any more, or when I finally get to play with an one of the proper Ubuntu installs.

I have 3 pieces of coursework for University due in around 2 weeks, I'm currently writing part of a magazine article for Linux Identity in the US (deadline is also 2 weeks!).

But don't worry, as soon as I get time, I'll be back and blogging properly like normal

I have actually been making use of a tabbed Nautilus (yay!) which I didn't think I would. I've also been using my VPS to torrent the desktop and alternate versions of Intrepid (32 bit versions). Stats of that at the time of writing are:

Desktop - Uploaded: 8126 MB
Alternate - Uploaded: 1680 MB

As you may have guessed - the alternate iso has only been seeding for a day or so. But this is what VPS's are for I'll continue seeding until Sunday night (GMT).

As for what I think of Intrepid on my laptop...well...I love it (as always). The only downside to it that I can complain about is the fact that unless I play my audio at near inaudible volumes (thus defeating the object of audio ). The sound distorts like a music concert recorded on a mobile phone (cell phone for the Americans reading this ).

Luckily - I don't need to use the sound a lot, I've been playing my music from my iPhone and it's dock, as it has a lineout on the rear of the dock

All in all - I think Intrepid is a decent release, though I totally understand people sticking with 8.04.1 as it's an LTS. I mean, I was considering it, but I love upgrading!!

Yes that's right, I managed to get Ubuntu installed on this machine. I installed Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) as it was at the Release Candidate (RC) stage when I tried it.

It all runs perfectly smoothly. I had to change the boot options on the installation CD, due to the Nvidia graphics card, which needed a proprietary driver. This was the most painful part of the installation, as on a screen with a native resolution of 1920x1200, I had to run at 800x600 :'(

After that it was all smooth sailing, I compiled a few apps, and used it as I would my own. Everything worked just fine, I was impressed that the volume control (the disc "thing" on the left of the keyboard) even worked! Sadly the touch buttons didn't work, but I expected this, as I know they're controlled by software and not hardware.

I didn't manage to get the fingerpint reader to work either, which I wasn't too fussed about, but it would've been nice. Overall I was impressed with the Linux experience I had with the Qosmio. The battery life didn't differ from Windows, though it doesn't on my own laptop either.

So overall, the Qosmio does actually work pretty well with Ubuntu in my experience, I wasn't expecting much because Toshiba laptop can be notoriously difficult to get working properly (just read through some of the threads in the UbuntuForums ).

There are also some pictures of the qosmio running Ubuntu if you would like to take a look :